Bryce Dallas Howard on Terminator Salvation

It's hard enough to make a marriage work in this culture of double income families, high divorce rates and economic strive. Add fighting killer robots to that and that's what the Connors deal with. Bryce Dallas Howard plays John Connor's wife in Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins.

Howard Talks Terminator Salvation

"My character Kate Connor is married to John Connor and she's also a physician," said Howard. "Specifically for my character, because she is a physician, you're really just trying to do the best that you can given the circumstances."

When we met her as Claire Danes in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, she was a veterinarian. She didn't exactly have time to go to medical school after the bombs hit.

"I assumed she's just finding books and she's just talking to as many people who have survived as possible to just learn as many techniques so that she can continue to save lives. That's been a really fascinating journey for me personally."

The Terminator world is a fantasy of technological creatures, but Howard didn't miss the metaphors. "Actually, it's interesting. We've never discussed this, but it's in the imagining of a post-Apocalyptic world you do have unfortunately a lot of references that we can go to today of war torn countries and third world countries where people just don't have access to basic clean food and water and accessories and medical provisions. That's something to kind of examine for us. To say, 'Okay yes, we're making a picture about totally devastated circumstances but the fact that it does reflect things that are going on currently in this privileged world that we're living in where there hasn't been an apocalypse and robots haven't taken over the world, I think that's something definitely for us to reinvestigate and that we continue to make choices for our own future to take that into consideration.'"

Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins opens to theaters on May 22nd, 2009.